FIGHTING FOR DEMOCRACY

Higgins’ memoir chronicles a life devoted to labor organization and his remarkable experience fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

Harry James Thomas Higgins, generally known as Jim, was born in 1907 in London, one of three children. He lived in the attic apartment of a pub his parents ran but was left without parents when his father died during a German bombing and his mother abandoned the children. He was sent to an orphanage around the age of 7 or 8, a time he surprisingly calls “one of the highlights of my life.” Years later, after having moved to Canada, he endured the Great Depression, and he took whatever job he could find to survive and was sometimes compelled to take shelter at relief camps—“slave camps” he called them—but often ran into trouble with superiors by organizing the other workers to advocate for better treatment. It was a deeply formative experience, one the author poignantly captures: “Hundreds of thousands were feeling the devastating effects of what we now know as ‘the Great Depression,’ but 1935 was the year that brought even the most stubborn to their knees. Yet it continued. Relentlessly. I was a good listener and avid reader, and though I knew I could not believe everything I read, I did know what was happening to the common people.” In 1937, feeling a great solidarity for those resisting the fascist assault on democracy, he decided to join the International Brigades fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Higgins writes plainly but vividly about his time as part of a machine-gun company. It was a role that ensured he would see plenty of combat and which he thrillingly conveys here. His daughter, Janette Higgins, edited his brief but captivating remembrance, truly “a hero’s history.” The account of the Spanish Civil War is as astute as it is dramatic. This is a remarkable peek into a grand history and an impressively humble recounting of a noble life.

A fascinating recollection, simply and movingly told.